Riley Blake Designs Project Tour- EPP Land of Liberty with Aurifil+ Video

Hi! I am excited to share my quilted table topper for the Land of Liberty project tour with Riley Blake Designs. I love patriotic fabric! And My Mind’s Eye nailed it with this fabric line!

EPP stars with Aurifil

Each month as an Aurifil Artisan, we have a new challenge to focus on. This month was EPP (English Paper Piecing). I knew instantly I wanted to make stars with this amazing patriotic fabric. If I machine piece these star blocks then I end up with one thing…y-seams. Y-seams are not my favorite. So to achieve this block, EPP it is! I had sew much fun with this on-the-go method of sewing. My daughter and I enjoyed watching The Great British Baking Show while I stitched these up (which seems a little unpatriotic-haha).

I created a YouTube video using my top 7 EPP tools. Most of these tools are by my friends at Riley Blake Designs. Watch the video as I talk about each tool and why it’s on my must have list! The following are the 7 must have tools:

Sue Daley’s Rotating cutting mat

Sue Daley’s Glue Pen

Sue Daley’s Size 11 needles

Cindy’s seam ripper

Riley Blake Designs Clapper

Oliso Mini Iron

Aurifil Thread

I used Aurifil 50 wt. for all of the EPP. I love 50 wt. because it is not too thick or too thin to EPP with. It glides through the fabric like butter. I have no thread breakage. And there are a ton of colors to chose from to get the perfect match to your fabric. I used my favorite 2021 white to EPP. There is a lot of white in this fabric line, so it matched great!

Table Topper

After I finished stitching up all of my stars I appliquéd these stars onto the cutest background fabric, Uncle Sam Blossom by Christopher Thompson for Riley Blake Designs. The red and blue little blossoms are so cute and match Land of Liberty perfectly. I used what I’ve heard called Sue Glue by Sue Daley to appliqué the stars. Then I used a blanket stitch on my Tula Pink Bernina to attach the stars to the background.

Aurifil Liberty

One of my favorite pieces of this whole quilt is this spool of thread! This spool of Aurifil is called Liberty. It is a variegated thread that transitions from red to white to blue. I used this thread to appliqué and quilt this quilt. I love it!

Quilt back

Land of Liberty has an awesome panel! The flag is a cheater print that looks like it is pieced with all of the cute prints in this fabric line. I decided to back my table topper with this flag panel. Now I have a double sided table topper. Probably my favorite print is the text print in Land of Liberty. The text is the lyrics to the National Anthem. When I was in high school, I sang the National Anthem for the football games. Since I sang it so much, I grew to love this song. So this fabric is extra special to me! I can’t wait to use this table topper this summer!

Star binding

Here you can see a close up of the binding. I decided to bind this in navy stars. I think it frames out the quilt and matches the borders of the flag. You can also see a close up of the Liberty thread! I seriously can’t get enough of this Aurifil Liberty thread!

Land of Liberty EPP stars

Now if it would just warm up, I am ready for summer! And now I need a new EPP project! This one was sew much fun! And I have the best tools ready to EPP!

Thanks for stopping by today! To see more of what I am up to, follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel!

Chirp Out!

Jen

Serendipity QAL with Fat Quarter Shop- Release 1

Today is the day! We get to start the Serendipity Quilt Along! The anticipation has been killing me! This is such a sweet quilt and I am sew excited to be sewing along with Fat Quarter Shop. The pattern and video tutorial can be found here.

If you missed my intro post you can check it out here. You can see my Bonnie and Camille quilt layout and check out all of my favorite tools!

Serendipity QAL

Now on to Block 1. I love this block! It has an hour glass block as the center and HST (half square triangles) which have become my favorite things to construct. But what about all of that trimming? I am one of the newest Go! Getters with Accuquilt and have started cutting out my hour glass blocks and HST with my Ready. Set. Go! Ultimate Fabric Cutting System. The Go! Qube 8″ has all of the sizes you need to construct this block.

Go! Qube

Here you can see I have cut out my squares, hour glass and HST for this block! Did you notice that the ends of the hour glass and HST are cut off? That means NO TRIMMING! After I sew them together, it is press and done! This saves me so much time! I am of course using my favorite Aurifil thread to stitch these up!

Fork Pins

Another time saver I have found is FORK PINS!!! If you have stopped by my blog before, you have probably heard me talk about Fork Pins. They are a game changer. The fork pin holds both sides of the seam in place while stitching. That means my seams and points match up perfectly! Now I spend less time unpicking! If you haven’t tried them yet, you should!

Serendipity QAL- Release 1

With these time saving tips, I was able to sew these blocks up quickly! The Serendipity Quilt has an accent fabric. I decided to use the navy ‘rainbow’ print as my accent. So you will see a lot more of this fun Shine On print. I love how this is turning out!

Serendipity QAL- Release 1

My favorite block? I would have to say is that red mum! Which should come as no surprise since the mums are my favorite Bonnie and Camille print EVER! I was so happy when they reprinted it in Shine On!

Thanks for stopping by today. If you would like to see more of what I am up to, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and subscribe to my new YouTube Channel.

Chirp Out!

Jen

Serendipity QAL with Fat Quarter Shop

I am sew excited to be sewing along with Fat Quarter Shop in their annual charity quilt. All donations for the quilt along will go to the Make-A-Wish Central and South Texas campaign. All of the fun starts tomorrow! The landing page for all things Serendipity can be found here!

Serendipity Quilt Along

I am using Bonnie and Camille’s new line Shine On for my Serendipity quilt. No surprise here as Bonnie and Camille are one of my favorite designers!

I have gathered some of my favorite tools for this project! I found this awesome sewing box at Ikea and am using it to store my blocks. Next up is my Aurifil thread. I use 2021 the most as it matches with everything. Plus I am using white as my background so it will blend in perfectly. I also love my Olfa rotary cutter. The teal matches with my Bonnie and Camille! Last but certainly not least is my Oliso iron. I love this mini iron. It gets super hot and is the perfect size to keep by my machine. And it is pink!

Foundation papers

Another tool I will be using is quilt block foundation papers. The Foundation papers used in this quilt are the 3″x 6″ flying geese, 1 1/2″x 3″ flying geese, Courthouse steps and 3″ square in a square. These awesome papers are made by It’s Sew Emma and can be found at Fat Quarter Shop. I am excited to share how I will be using these!

Accuquilt Go!

The other tool I will be using is my Accuquilt Go! I am one of the newest Go! Getters and I can’t wait to share how I am using these dies with my Serendipity quilt!

Bonnie and Camille Serendipity Quilt

This is my layout for the Serendipity Quilt. I love these bright and fun colors! I can’t wait to stitch this up with you! I also recolored the back of the quilt! I of course used the mums for the back! They are my favorite Bonnie and Camille print ever!

Serendipity Quilt Back

Thanks for stopping by today. If you would like to see more of what I am up to you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and subscribe to my new YouTube channel!

Chirp Out!

Jen

February Blocks- #RBDBLOCKCHALLENGE

Have you seen the Riley Blake Designs Block Challenge? They post one block a month from a different designer and by the end of the challenge we will have a fun sampler quilt! You can find all of the blocks HERE for free! They even have a fun Facebook group that you can join and share your blocks. I couldn’t resist joining in the fun!

Flea Market by Lori Holt

I decided to use Lori Holt’s fabric line Flea Market for Riley Blake Designs. I wanted to have some pink accents so I decided to use Hot Pink Blossoms fabric as the background. I absolutely love the Blossoms line of fabric, especially as a background in a quilt. I am also using one of Riley Blake Design’s new Confetti Cottons Frosting for the sashing!

Accuquilt dies

Did you see my latest YouTube video? I am the one of the newest Accuquilt Go! Getters. I now can share my love for all things Accuquilt. I don’t always love cutting fabric and Accuquilt saves me so much time! Especially with HST- half square triangles. There is no trimming HST and they come out perfect every time! Now I just cut and sew!

I use the Accuquilt to cut out my squares as well! I love directional fabric prints. But I also want to keep them going the right direction. Cutting fabric out with the Accuquilt helps keep my prints directional.

Fork Pins

If you have stopped by my blog before, you have seen my obsession with FORK PINS! If you haven’t tried them, you have to! The fork pins hold either side of the seam. While sewing, it keeps the seams from budging. Since I started using them, my seams have matched up so much better, and my points! Which means less unpicking and more sewing!

My two favorite pressing tools!

I have to share my two favorite pressing tools! I love my mini Oliso iron! It is the perfect size to keep by my machine while I’m sewing. It gets extra hot! Plus its pink! I also use my Riley Blake Designs Tailor’s Clapper. After pressing my seams, I place the clapper on top of my block. The heat from the iron and weight from the clapper set the seam. On a block like this one with so many seams, my block still lays flat!

February #RBDBLOCKCHALLENGE

Here are the February blocks! I love how these turned out! I love the pink blossom background and can’t wait to see them all together! I am not great at surprises, but this surprise has been so fun! Are you sewing along too?

If you would like to see more of what I am up to, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and subscribe to my new YouTube channel!

Chirp Out!

Jen